Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One and Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Bertram is also the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, Light Bringer, Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire.

Follow Bertram's Blog via Email

Follow Bertram on Twitter

Grateful For Numerous Choices

July 7, 2016 — Pat Bertram

Although I wrote a post saying Life Shouldn’t Be So Hard, in many ways, that “so hard” arises from the many things for which I am grateful, such as relative good health, a bit of savings to indulge my whim for not settling down, and most of all, my numerous choices. For the first time in my life, I have no one to consider but myself. No one to take care of. No responsibilities. No need to be a grown-up and do the typical grown-up things like get a job, sign a lease, decide what and where to settle down. The world still beckons me, and there is no reason why I shouldn’t follow that beckoning.

As a wise person told me, “You can always settle down later if you want to, but there is no guarantee that you can travel later.”

I am currently staying at a ghastly motel, but I’ve decided to play the “Taxi” game until I find a place to stay around here or until I decide to take off again. At one time there was a horrible television show called “Taxi” starring Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman, and a whole host of strange characters. One fellow lacked a good grasp of English, and he rented an opulent apartment for an exorbitant amount of money thinking he was paying for a year, though the rent was only for a month. When he couldn’t get his money back after discovering the truth, he and his friends enjoyed the luxury and amenities for that month, and then went back to their normal not-so-exciting lives.

Ever since then, Jeff and I called such a phenomenon “taxiing” and we often talked about going for broke just once, and taxiing it, yet we never did. We were too frugal, too conscientious, too responsible, too aware of the vagaries of life to lavish what little we had on such a short-term pleasure, especially since the expense would make things difficult in the future.

Now, although I’m still practical, I’m more inclined to let the future take care of itself (at least during those odd moments when I’m not worried about what is to become of me). There’s no reason I can’t stay at a nicer motel or hotel for a few weeks, and live it up. (Or down, since such a place would be a lot more relaxing than this fleabag motel where the bugs are feasting on me.)

But, whatever I do, no matter how I sound in my more frantic or desolate times, I am grateful that for now I have such a choice.

***

(Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.”)

Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One debunks many established beliefs about what grief is, explains how it affects those left behind, and shows how to adjust to a world that no longer contains the loved one. “It is exactly what folk need to read who are grieving.”(Leesa Heely Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator ).

Other books by Pat Bertram

Available online wherever books and ebooks are sold.

Grief: The Great Yearning is not a how-to but a how-done, a compilation of letters, blog posts, and journal entries Pat Bertram wrote while struggling to survive her first year of grief. This is an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.

While sorting through her deceased husband’s effects, Amanda is shocked to discover a gun and the photo of an unknown girl who resembles their daughter. After dedicating her life to David and his vocation as a pastor, the evidence that her devout husband kept secrets devastates Amanda. But Amanda has secrets of her own. . .

When Pat’s adult dance classmates discover she is a published author, the women suggest she write a mystery featuring the studio and its aging students. One sweet older lady laughingly volunteers to be the victim, and the others offer suggestions to jazz up the story. Pat starts writing, and then . . . the murders begin.

Thirty-seven years after being abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Colorado, Becka Johnson returns to try to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? And why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen?

When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents -- grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born -- she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead.

In quarantined Colorado, where hundreds of thousands of people are dying from an unstoppable, bio-engineered disease, investigative reporter Greg Pullman risks everything to discover the truth: Who unleashed the deadly organism? And why?

Bob Stark returns to Denver after 18 years in SE Asia to discover that the mother he buried before he left is dead again. At her new funeral, he sees . . . himself. Is his other self a hoaxer, or is something more sinister going on?